


The Dirty Element

by littlelionlady



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Baiting Illya is too easy, Bickering, Fighting, Gaby is a BAMF, Gen, Humour, Post-Mission, Sparring, Training, training fic, work out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 02:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18714745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelionlady/pseuds/littlelionlady
Summary: Gaby fights dirty. Illyalovesto fight dirty too.Or;Napoleon loses spectacularly during a sparring session, and Illya is slightly too cocky for Napoleon to care about stopping him from getting his nose broken.





	The Dirty Element

**Author's Note:**

> For my warrior women.
> 
> This happened by total accident because I've read so many fics about the boys not thinking she can handle herself, but honestly, I would not want to be on the receiving end of a blow from Gaby Teller. She frightens me, and that's hot. 
> 
> Title based on this quote;  
> “If it is the dirty element that gives pleasure to the act of lust, then the dirtier it is, the more pleasurable it is bound to be.”  
> ― Marquis de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom
> 
> reviews are life.

Napoleon's breath rushed out of him in a _whoosh._ He stumbled back to his feet, forcing his body back into a fighting stance. He wasn’t as good a fighter as Peril, but he was good. And he refused to believe that in a few short weeks some tiny, German, car mechanic would be better. And besides, she wasn’t even fighting fair. He told her so.  
  
“We’re spies Solo, _no one fights fair.”_

He spat some blood out of his mouth and frowned at her. 

“Again,” he gritted out.

Gaby smirked at him, sweat sticking her hair to her neck, and making her flyaways look fuzzy. There was a yellowing bruise on her cheek she had sustained the week before. Her opponent, an Argentinian man taken down on charges for human trafficking, had not been so lucky. She had been particularly savage upon discovering his latest load; twelve small girls, the oldest 15, all dressed in white.  
  
Napoleon and Illya hadn’t tried to stop her.

She lunged for him, teeth bared and landed a blow to his ribs before he could block it. He absorbed the blow, as best he could, and grabbed her by the shoulders to twist her around. She darted under his arm and landed another blow to his side before stepping out of the way. She danced away from him, mocking him with a pirouette. He grunted and rushed her when she wasn’t looking, knocking her off balance and slamming her into the training mat. She was winded and lifted her arms to cover her face for any suspecting blows.  
  
Napoleon huffed a small laugh, sweat dripping into his eyes, “If you’re going to mock an opponent, don’t look away.”

She pouted at him, and slammed the knee trapped between his legs, up hard into his groin. Napoleon went stiff, gagged, and she pushed him off to the side and straddled his chest, pinning his arms under her knees.  
  
“Don’t mock me, _Cowboy,_ ” the nickname sounded wrong when she said it, and both boys always frowned when she used it to mock them.  
  
He grunted his assent. She clambered off him.  
  
“You know Cowboy,” game a Russian drawl from the side of the room, far too amused for Napoleon’s comfort, “I think you just got beat by woman.”  
  
He pushed himself into a sitting position, glaring at Illya who was leaning heavily against the wall, grey tracksuit only slightly sweat-stained from his earlier run.

“She doesn’t play fair,” he called back, gingerly trying to get a purchase on the floor so he could stand. Gaby took pity and grabbed his arm, lifting him to his feet. At least she wasn’t a sore winner. She grinned sheepishly at him and mouthed a sorry. He nodded, refusing to smile back. His balls throbbed and he hobbled over to Peril.

“If you think it’s that easy,” he hissed, “Why don’t you try it?”  
  
Illya laughed, and Gaby’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing, “What?” she called, “Afraid you’re going to lose again like you lost in Rome?”

Illya turned red, actually turned red, and Napoleon raised a curious eyebrow between the two. Many things had happened between the two of them in Rome, this much he knew. The tension between them could have been cut with a butter knife. Mostly, he had spent his time throwing casual innuendoes at them, just to see if someone would snap. No one would. And Istanbul had been too strained for him to have much time for witty one-liners.

“You fought in Rome?” he asked.  
  
Illya grunted, “Gaby fought in Rome.”  
  
Gaby laughed, “So did you! And then you took the fall for that hotel bill,” she grinned at him.  
  
“You fell asleep!”

“I was drunk. You carried me to bed like a gentleman.”

Illya blushed further and shuffled his feet.  
  
Napoleon’s other eyebrow chased his first one, “You got drunk and _fought_ in Rome?”

Gaby shrugged like it was something she did regularly. Napoleon wasn’t all that surprised to find he could believe it.

She turned to Illya and grinned a shit-eating grin, “Afraid you’ll lose again Illya?” her tone was mocking and Napoleon wasn’t sure that he could even resist, should he have been in Peril’s position.  
  
The Russian pushed off the wall and walked to the middle of the mat, kicking his shoes off at his went. They stood across from each other, bodies held like lose springs, ready for a final push. Gaby winked at Illya, and he swung, reaching for arm in an impossibly fast movement. Napoleon idly wondered if Illya would hold back; he held no reservations about the amount of strength that man possessed in his body. Napoleon had been on the receiving end of it. He knew how lightning fast and strong Illya was. How he moved with precision, timing everything perfectly; taken out before you could breathe. But surely, he could hold back with Gaby. She was over a foot shorter and at least two feet less wide.

They feigned and pushed for a bit, landing a few blows against each other. Napoleon could hear Illya’s grunts as Gaby got him in the chest and ribs. He landed a blow to her shoulder and one in the gut that had caused him to hesitate and allowed Gaby to land a kick in his gut, in retaliation.  
  
He frowned and doubled his efforts; she was strong. He was stronger.  
  
He lunged at her, forcing his heels to stay grounded on the floor. He wasn’t trying to land a punch now, he was trying to grab her, force her onto the mat, flip her, wind her. Make her stay down. It wouldn’t hurt. But it would prove a point.

Gaby ducked under his outstretched arms and dropped low to sweep her leg under his feet. He jumped back just in time, and reach down to grab Gaby’s ankle. She snatched it away, and sprung forward, between his legs so they were back to back. Faster, somehow faster than Illya, she turned and landed a kick to the small of his back, sending him stumbling forward. Still on his feet, Gaby frowned and reached up for a handful of his hair. She pulled down, hard, and sent the Russian slamming back into the mat shoulder first, hissing and spitting like a cornered cat. He reached up to grab her wrist and yank her away but she was already standing in front of him, watching him fall and sprawl.

Napoleon had been right, she didn’t play fair. _She played dirty._

Something inside Illya snapped, and, like a giddy child, he opened his legs and shut them quickly over Gaby’s ankles, yanking so she lost her balance and fell too, hard. She yanked her ankles free and rolled over to face Illya. The move was unconventional, but at least she was down.    
  
“I think that was even,” he conceded. Gaby bared her teeth and sprang at him, landing a blow to his nose before he caught her and threw her off with all the strength he possessed, to send her sprawling a good twelve feet away. She looked across at him, from her tangle of hair as Illya realised what he had done.  
  
That throw had been full force.

Gaby’s answering smile was almost predatory.  
  
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Napoleon knew he should probably call this off. But he had money riding on Gaby knocking Illya down a wrung or two. He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. Gaby and Illya both stood.

Illya held his hands up apologetically, but Gaby was already charging; she jumped straight at him, and sank her teeth into the point where his neck met his shoulder. Illya gasped and grunted,  gripping her hair in one hand and her shoulder in the other, he shoved her off.

She didn’t fight fair. She fought like an animal.

Gaby stumbled and smiled, blood on her teeth. He growled and went straight for her, vision blurring at the edges. He could play dirty too. He _loved_ to play dirty . It was the dirty element that gave pleasure to the act, the act of everything. He had learnt this as a young, eager agent. The dirtier it was, the more pleasurable it was bound to be. At the time, he had applied it to his fighting, letting it make him as ruthless as he was designed to be, taking down his opponents in seconds as opposed to minutes. But now, looking at her tiny, powerful frame, he could see it meant something else entirely.

He threw a punch, she blocked. She threw one, he caught her hand and twisted her around, so her back was against his torso. She thrashed a leg back and caught him in the knees. He grunted, and stumbled, one knee hitting the mat. He landed like he was about to propose, except that Gaby was still in his arms. She threw her body weight forward, ripping herself from his grip, and swung, using her momentum to land a blow hard enough to Illya’s face that his vision clouded and he was sent sprawling. He distinctly heard one of the bones in her hand snap. 

When he opened her eyes, she was standing over him, grinning, with a foot on his chest.  
  
“I win.”

In the distance, Illya could hear Solo clapping.


End file.
